


If Music Be the Food of Love

by Morvidra



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Early music, M/M, folk festival, music nerdery, music student jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 19:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8460961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morvidra/pseuds/Morvidra
Summary: Gimli plays in his family's early music consort. The performance is going well, but there's this blond in the corner who won't stop staring...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Khazad November on tumblr - Day Two: Gimli

Gimli was sweating.

He wondered, for what seemed like the fiftieth time that day, whose idea it had been for the group to wear black. Black, in the middle of summer, while playing in a tent which, needless to say, did not have air-conditioning. 

Of course, it had to be worse for Gimli’s dad and cousin Dis, who were demonstrating medieval and renaissance dances to the music the rest of the company was playing. Dancing in black had to be even worse than playing an instrument; Gimli at least got to sit down. Still, today’s audience had been appreciative despite the sweltering conditions – they always did well at folk festivals – and there was a fair-sized crowd swirling around the tent in a rainbow of colours.

He glanced sideways at the rest of the performers. Dori was as immaculate as ever, but condensation was dripping from Ori’s flute, and Nori’s hair was drooping. Dwalin’s face was beetroot-colour, and he seemed to be gritting his teeth as he bent over his bass viol. Even Fili and Kili were playing with less than their usual verve.

_Why do we do this?_ Gimli wondered. But he knew. They all did it because they loved it. Loved being part of the group, loved the audiences – but most of all, they loved the music.

A breath between numbers, as Bofur swapped to a different recorder and Thorin adjusted the tuning of his harpstrings. Gimli didn’t know why he bothered – in this humidity it would be out of tune again before the end of the set. (Not that he was going to tell Thorin that.) Fili leaned over to Gimli.

“You know that guy?” he asked quietly, nodding slightly towards the section of the audience that Gimli had been eying through the whole set. “In the corner. The tall blond.”

“No,” Gimli said shortly, tearing his eyes away. “Never seen him before.”

“Really.” Fili raised an eyebrow. “He’s been here for every set we’ve played over the past three days. Always stands in the same part of the tent. And stares at you the whole time.”

“Does he.”

Kili leaned across Fili. “Want us to have a talk to him after? If he’s bothering you…”

“He’s fine!” Gimli snapped. He could feel himself blushing – hopefully it wasn’t noticeable on his heat-reddened face. “It’s fine. No problem.”

Thankfully, the set resumed at that point. Two tunes later, Gimli was getting out of breath, and they were all draining their waterbottles (and blessing Balin for filling the eskies with ice). But they only had one piece left to play.

Oin set the beat on his tambour. Fiddles, flutes and recorders were raised. And the Company of Thorin swung into its final number, playing as fast as they thought they could get away with, because the sooner this was done, the sooner they could pack up and go for a beer.

Only, when they had finished, and Thorin had accepted the applause on their behalf (pretty strong applause, actually – it really had been a good audience), Gimli didn’t head out the back for a beer, nor did he start packing up. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he found himself jumping down from the stage and heading over to the corner where a tall blond was still standing. A very tall blond, Gimli found as he got closer – his head was about level with the guy’s collarbones.

“Hey,” Gimli said, stopping about a metre away. “You right there?”

The blond jumped slightly. “Um… fine. I’m good. Sorry. Um, thanks,” he said, which had to be the most inarticulate response Gimli had ever heard coming out of a human being’s mouth. 

“I just noticed you’ve been here a lot, watching us play,” Gimli said, and did that sound as if he were accusing the guy of something? “Which is fine, obviously – in fact it’s great. If you enjoyed it, I mean. Did you enjoy it?”

Gimli decided he was never going to criticise anyone for being inarticulate ever again.

“It was really great,” the blond said earnestly, and god, his eyes even lit up when he talked. “The whole balance of the instruments is really unusual, but the bass viol and the deeper woodwinds definitely broadened the timbre, and I loved the piece with the sackbut solo.”

Well, OK. Gimli blinked a few times. This was not your average folk-festival attendee – although, he realised, it wasn’t as though he’d spoken with any of them like this. Maybe they all talked like music journalists.

“Are you a journalist?” Gimli asked out loud, and then mentally kicked himself. Really, he should just keep his mouth shut.

“Oh no, sorry, no.” The blond looked apologetic, which was way too cute to be allowed. “I – well, not yet, anyway. Maybe one day. Sorry, I mean – I’m a music student. Um, my name’s Legolas.”

“I’m Gimli.” Gimli held his hand out, although it hovered awkwardly as he wondered whether shaking hands was something he should be doing. Maybe he should have nodded, or flashed the peace sign or something?

Legolas took his hand anyway, and shook it lightly. “Um. It’s really nice to meet you, Gimli. I, um. Hope I wasn’t bothering you, being here all the time?”

“No!” Gimli said, too loudly. “That is, no, not at all. I mean, I noticed you here…” he trailed off and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, I did wonder if you were staring for any particular reason, I guess.”

“Oh, um, I’m really sorry for staring at you,” Legolas said, looking mortified. “I was actually trying to figure out what instrument you were playing, to start with.”

“Oh.” Gimli could feel his face reddening again. So that was all it was… although surely finding out would have taken Legolas only about five minutes on his phone… “It’s a crumhorn. You’re a music student, and you couldn’t recognise it?” he added tartly.

“We don’t spend a lot of time on medieval instruments,” Legolas said, a little huffily.

“The crumhorn is a renaissance instrument,” Gimli retorted.

They glared at each other momentarily before realising that they hadn’t let go from shaking hands several minutes earlier. Gimli felt his mouth twitch. Legolas bit his lip to hide a smile.

“And I looked it up after the first day, anyway,” Legolas added, still not dropping Gimli’s hand. “I was just… trying to figure out if you were playing a bass crumhorn or an extended tenor.”

In a pig’s ear he had been, but Gimli charitably didn’t say so. Anyway, he was discovering that Legolas looked quite adorable when he was avoiding telling the truth – although, full marks for remembering enough terminology to bluff a technical answer.

And of course, life being determined to ruin every possible moment for Gimli, it was at this point that he noticed Dwalin glaring at him from the stage and making obvious gestures of Stop Flirting And Get Your Arse Over Here.

“Look, I have to help pack up our gear,” he said reluctantly.

“Oh!” Legolas dropped his hand as if it had suddenly turned red-hot. “I, um – of course you do. I’m really sorry. Um.” He twisted his own hands together nervously, and OK, Gimli really shouldn’t have been staring at those long fingers, but he found himself wondering what instrument Legolas played, and how he’d never find out if he just let the guy walk away now.

“Meet me after?” he suggested. “If you want, I mean, no worries if you’ve got something else on. But if you don’t…?”

Legolas’ eyes lit up again and oh. Gimli really had to find a way to keep making that happen. “Um, yes? I mean, I haven’t got anywhere else to be. Um. And I’d like to meet you again. After. Um. Should I wait here?”

Gimli thought a moment, and shook his head. “Only if you want, but we’ll be about half an hour packing all our crap in Dwalin’s ute. Um.” Right, maybe the um-ing was contagious. “Maybe if you go wander around and meet me back here in thirty minutes, it might work better.” A thought crossed his mind. “Bring something cold.”

*****

Legolas had brought ice-cream. In cones.

It was already starting to melt over his fingers when he got back to the tent. Gimli had done some stern talking to himself about not staring at Legolas’ hands, because that was rude and creepy, but really? When the hands in question turned up covered in drips of chocolate ice-cream?

Gimli firmly told himself that staring was probably inevitable in such a case, and certainly better than taking either hand and carefully licking every scrap of chocolate off those fingers, which was the only other option that sprang to mind. He carefully took the offered ice-cream, instead, and focused on eating it without getting too messy himself, a task which was pretty much doomed to failure.

“So you’re a music student, you said?” he asked after they’d walked a little way.

“Mm-hm,” Legolas agreed, his mouth around his ice-cream, and… Gimli snapped his gaze away. “At uni,” Legolas continued. “I’m not sure what I’m going to major in yet, though – musicology looks pretty good, but I don’t know if there’s a lot of jobs out there. And I don’t really want to teach.”

“Musicology?” Gimli was pretty sure he’d heard the phrase, but couldn’t place it for the moment. And anyway… when Legolas talked about music, he stopped um-ing. This was clearly to be encouraged.

“It’s kind of music theory, and research, and writing about music,” Legolas explained. “And sometimes being a music reviewer, and all that sort of thing, it’s a pretty wide field. You have to know a lot!”

“Sounds interesting,” Gimli said, and if he meant the way Legolas described it rather than the content, well… “So you don’t play an instrument, then?”

“Oh no, I do,” Legolas assured him earnestly. “Oh crap…” He paused to deal with an ice-cream drip that had nearly reached his wrist. Gimli watched him trail a pink tongue up the length of his hand, and wondered that his own ice-cream hadn’t vaporised in his grip.

“I play piano,” Legolas continued. “And oboe.”

“Oboe’s a bit like the crumhorn, isn’t it?” Gimli asked, interested. “Double-reed?”

“Well, yeah… but you don’t blow straight into the reed with your crumhorn, do you?” Legolas said, not really asking. “There’s that mouthpiece – more like a bagpipe chanter, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Gimli said vaguely. He wasn’t really sure how bagpipes worked.

“Right, so with the oboe the reed is the mouthpiece.” Legolas waved his hands, scattering drops of chocolate ice-cream everywhere. “Lots of vibration and air-pressure build-up and you have your sound. And a headache, sometimes.”

“Sounds a bit like the shawm.” Gimli nodded. “I play that too, sometimes,” he added through his last mouthful of ice-cream. He sucked the remaining smears of chocolate off his fingers – it was damn good ice-cream, no point wasting it.

Legolas made a choked sound, so double-win.

“The shawm, yeah,” Legolas said eventually. “I think they’re similar. We… should get together and check sometime, maybe.”

“Show me your instrument and I’ll show you mine,” Gimli said innocently.

“We could compare fingerings,” Legolas shot back, straight-faced.

“Grip is very important,” Gimli agreed.

“And the correct use of the tongue,” Legolas added.

They were both sniggering by this point of the half-flirting, half-joking conversation. And Gimli really, really wanted to kiss the chocolate smears off Legolas’ lower lip, but for crying out loud they’d only just met, and it would be way too soon.

And then the first raindrop hit Gimli’s nose.

“I think we’d better get undercover,” he started to say, but he hadn’t got past “I think” before the clouds burst overhead, and the rain was bucketing down.

Legolas grabbed his arm, and really, why had they walked this far from the nearest tent? They made a dash for it, which was probably ill-advised, considering that the grass underfoot had been turned to dust by the summer heat. And the rain had turned it to mud.

Gimli skidded. Legolas slid. They might have made it if they hadn’t tried to grab hold of each other – as it was, they only managed to splat in a heap together.

The rain kept pouring, and now they were covered in mud as well as chocolate, and clutching each other and laughing so hard they could barely breathe, and it would have taken a stop-motion replay to tell which of them kissed the other first.

But it was some time before they made it to the tent.


End file.
